


A Family Of Orphans (Original Novel)

by 7Sunshine



Category: Original Work
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure, Far Future, Gen, Healthy Relationships, Immigration, Magical Realism, Science Fiction, freaks, outcasts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:54:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23825641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/7Sunshine/pseuds/7Sunshine
Summary: When home is no longer safe, where do you go? A family escapes from their country as its government prepares for war with Laja, a larger country that promises a better life. This story follows Corinne, Justin, April, Molly, and Leo as they fight to reach Laja. They must cross a barren wasteland between the two countries by train, but things go awry and they now have to find a way to survive in a scorching desert. Chapter uploads every Sunday, each chapter title indicates whose perspective we're reading from.
Relationships: Highschool sweethearts - Relationship, Refugee family, adopted family - Relationship
Kudos: 1





	1. Corinne

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so excited to be publishing this!!! I really hope you guys enjoy it!

“If anyone moves they’ll be shot!”  
The men with the guns jerk them around, each time one is aimed at us my throat tightens. In the corner of my vision, I see Justin slowly inching his way in front of us. God damn it Justin, always trying to be the hero.  
“Stay behind me.” he whispers so only the five of us can hear.  
The three gunmen cock their guns back and start walking through the bus, a few people cry out.  
“Be quiet or we’ll shoot!” the leader shouts, I can hear April as she starts hyperventilating. I slowly reach my arm back so she has something to hold, and she grips my hand so tightly that it starts to cut off circulation. When the robbers get distracted by a woman with a family heirloom, I turn around and face Molly, April, and Leo.  
“Hey, I know this is really scary but you need to listen to me. If you have anything important with you like money, shove it in your underwear when they aren’t looking. Okay?”  
They look at me with wide eyes but nod their heads obediently. I try to muster a reassuring smile. I take off a few necklaces and rings and stuff them into my own bra, and turn around before any of the robbers can notice me.  
“Give me all your money and jewelry.”  
The man’s gruff voice makes me jump, but I try to take off my earrings as calmly as possible and hand them over to the man. Justin pulls out a few tens, which I know is only half of what he has with him, and adds his watch to the pile of money and jewels. I feel bad for the people who lost gold or diamond pieces, I figured it was common knowledge how bad the crime rate was here. These people are probably visiting for business reasons, that’s the only reason anyone would come to this side of town. No one comes here on purpose.  
The thugs finish rounding up most of the valuables on the train, but they decide that what we have to offer isn’t enough for them. Like most people, they want to squeeze out every last drop of our wealth and feed the greedy dragon inside them. I can tell that they don’t have a family of their own, at least not one they’d care enough to know about. Their eyes don’t carry the softness and desperation that loving fathers have, all that I see in them is a will to gain wealth. They’re just a pack of selfish bastards wanting to steal from the poor to feed themselves.  
“Now I know that’s not all you have,” bellows the leader, “looks like we’re gonna have to do this the hard way. Everyone down on their knees with their bags open!”  
Justin stands firmly with his fists at his side, his breathing is heavy and I know he wants to fight. I put a hand on his back to try and soothe whatever’s welling up inside his core.  
 _You can’t always make everything okay, Justin._ I think as I try to tug him down by the edge of his sleeves. I get down on my knees and open my backpack so they can search until their pockets are full. I don’t care anymore as long as they don’t shoot. Justin yanks back from my efforts to tug him down.  
“Justin, listen to me. They have guns. You need to get down before they aim at you.” I hiss. He ignores my pleas.  
“You there!” shouts one of the men, “Are you deaf or something? Get the fuck down!”  
Justin stares the man in the face, “No, we already gave you what little shit we had with us. Get off the bus now or you’ll regret it.”  
The man laughs, pointing the gun directly at Justin’s stomach.  
“I’m not sure you know who you’re talking to. I’m the man with the gun, I’m the last person who should be scared. You know you’re not bulletproof, kid.”  
“Justin, please.” I say one final time, but he only smirks at the gunman.  
“Well, I know I’d definitely be concerned if I had just robbed a bus that was headed for the _police station._ ” he says that loud enough for the whole bus to hear. And now that I check the route the bus is taking, I realize that he’s right- we’re headed right for the police.  
The bandits notice too.  
“Shit, we gotta get outta here.” the ringleader says and starts making a beeline for the emergency exit. The other three join him, running like their mothers just called them for a beating. Still afraid of being shot, nobody moves from where they are except Justin. He’s bent over dying of laughter, apparently this is amusing.  
When the emergency window opens up, all four dive out of the opening as fast as possible. One of them even snags his shoe on the edge and falls out with just a thin sock on to protect his foot from the torn up roads. I almost feel bad for him.  
It takes just a few seconds for us to reach the police station, and it makes me start to wish that Justin had just gone along with the muggers instead of warning them about their fate. Still, it shouldn’t be too hard for the police to catch up to them.  
When the bus begins to slow, I grab Justin and the kids and drag them down the stairs before the police can come in and keep us until long after dark asking pointless questions. The people on the lower deck look quizzically at us, the robbers must have been too chicken to rob them and went straight to the second level. Nonetheless, the bus driver must have heard people screaming and figured out what was happening above him.  
When we reach the bottom of the bus stairs the driver seems to be missing in action, probably running to alert the authorities, so we can easily step off and blend in with the other nosy onlookers trying to be witnesses so they can get a reward. You can’t throw a penny five feet without finding somebody trying to swindle money with the given opportunity.  
“Are there any backways to get home?” I ask Justin as he takes the lead of steering us around the crowd.  
“I think so, but I haven’t taken it yet. We just need to move fast before we get caught out late.”  
I nod my head in agreement, there’s more than just greedy people out at night.  
“Stay close, guys.” I turn to make sure all three of them are still with us; they’re smart kids but this is still a dangerous city. I smile when I see them all holding hands tightly, just like I’ve taught them to.  
We finally get past the crowd and Justin ushers us into a darkening alleyway that winds between buildings like a roofless tunnel.  
“Why did they have to rob us today, of all days? I just bought that watch a couple weeks ago.” Justin grumbles.  
“You would’ve had more worries than that dumb watch if you hadn’t scared them off.” I say, lightly punching him in the arm, “And you’re not the only one who lost something.”  
“That was scary.” April says quietly.  
“Not for me!” Leo says a little too excitedly, “Justin would have kicked their asses, right Justin?”  
Justin doesn’t respond, but instead gives a light shh, which we all take as a cue that there’s someone else approaching. I see them too, a hooded figure hurriedly carrying a bundle. I worry about what they might be carrying, but it’s too dark to see anything more than a few outlines. I try to keep a neutral face as we get closer to them, we’ve learned that when we pass anyone in the alleys we need to keep our heads down and walk with purpose, like we belong there as much as they do. We also know to never interact with anyone past sunset.  
The dark figure comes closer, and when we pass them I take a peek at their face. I realize it’s a woman, carrying a baby in her arms. She skits past us quickly, but I can still see the pure fear in her eyes as she pulls the baby closer to her chest and tries to keep it from making a sound. She’s no less afraid than we are, if not more.  
When she’s a few steps behind us I turn around and walk in the same direction she is so desperately moving in.  
“Excuse me.” I say as un-menacing as I can. “I think you might need this.”  
She doesn’t slow down, only turns her head slightly as I speedwalk to catch up with her. I reach into my bag and pull out my taser that I keep with me at all times. I hold it out to her and she stops in her tracks, eyeing me fearfully.  
“Here, you probably need this more than me at this time of night.” I say gently.  
She looks at my face carefully, then my hand holding the taser, and takes it with a curt nod. I smile back at her as she rushes off into the darkness, and I jog back to where Justin and the kids are waiting for me. As we start walking again Leo takes my hand.  
“Who were you talking to? I thought we weren’t supposed to talk to strangers when it’s dark.”  
“I know, I broke the rule. But that woman was more scared than we were and needed help.” I squeeze his hand, “You should always help someone if they need something more than you do.”


	2. Leo

I wake up in the middle of the night to hear Justin and Corinne talking in the kitchen, they’ve been doing that a lot lately. I can’t go back to sleep now, so I get up and tiptoe down the hallway until I can hear what they’re saying. They’re trying to keep their voices quiet so they don’t wake us up, but the walls here are so thin that it’s pointless.  
I peek around the corner so I can see them, Corinne is sitting in one of the chairs while Justin leans against the stove puffing on a cigarette.  
“But what are we supposed to do? Immigrate to Laja?” Corinne says, “The process to become legal citizens takes years to go through with, and even then, what would happen once we’re there? We’d have to start all over again, find work, a decent enough house, a school for these kids. I don’t want to stay here, that’s obvious as hell, but leaving the country is near impossible, especially with Hatari on the brink of war with Laja.”  
Justin rubs his face, he’s probably tired from all that’s been happening.  
“We can find a way to get out of Hatari and into Laja, under the radar. I’ll figure it out, I’ll do whatever it takes to get us away from this God forsaken place as soon as possible.”  
He puts out the cigarette and crosses the room to where Corinne is sitting. He holds her hands and looks at her all mushy. Adults are so gross.  
“Trust me. I’ll get us the hell out of here. I promise.” Justin says quietly.  
Oh crap, I need to sneeze. Okay, I just need to focus on not sneezing. I’m a badass 8 year old who faces off robbers during the day. Badasses don’t have time to snee-e-e-  
“Achoo!”  
Corinne and Justin immediately look in my direction, I jump back and hope they think it was some weirdo outside. I try to hold my breath so they can’t hear me.  
“Leo, I know you’re over there.”  
Damn, they found me out. I peep out from behind the wall.  
“We knew you were spying.” Justin says, “You’re a pretty good ninja but you can’t fool us just yet.”  
“What are you guys talking about?”  
Justin rubs my head, making my hair stick up even more. I shove his hand away.  
“Nothing you need to worry about, kid.”  
“But I want to know!” I insist.  
Corinne pulls me over to where she’s sitting.  
“Sorry Leo, sometimes there’s things just us adults need to think about on our own. We’ll let you know soon, okay?”  
Her logic sucks, but I nod my head. Corinne pulls me into a hug and kisses the top of my head.  
“See you tomorrow, bud. Get some rest.”  
“Okaaay.”  
I slowly walk back to my room and crawl under the covers. I can’t fall asleep for a long time, but as I finally close my eyes I can still hear Corinne and Justin murmuring to each other.

🗙🗙🗙

The next morning at the breakfast table, Justin looks like he has two black eyes as he switches between a cigarette and a cup of cinnamon coffee, which he usually only drinks on Christmas or New Years. It looks like Corinne tried to hide her sleepiness a little better, at least she used some concealer. Still, I can tell she’s tired because she keeps rubbing her eyes and drinking cup after cup of green tea.  
Breakfast is sugary cereal. It used to be my favorite. And then we started having it every morning for the past month. It started tasting gross after the second week.  
“Cooorinne. Why can’t we have bacon and eggs for breakfast? Or pancakes? I’m so tired of cereal!” I flop down on the table in front of my bowl.  
“Leo, I get it. We’re all tired of cereal, and if I could get eggs and bacon then I would. But you saw those guys with the guns yesterday, it’s getting really dangerous out there and we haven’t had any time to go to the stores. Most of them won’t even have fresh produce there, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want to have rotting meat for breakfast. Cereal’s the best we can do for right now.”  
“Okay, I’m sorry Corinne.”  
She rubs my head and she knows I hate it.  
“I forgive you. If you really want to, you can have a handful of grapes from the freezer.”  
She pulls out a bunch of grapes from our half-broken freezer and holds them out for me, I try to get as big of a handful as possible. It’s a little game we all play, the handful game. Whenever we have food, we need to make sure we only get enough to fit in our hand. But I know Justin doesn’t play along, he always gets the smallest handful out of all of us.  
I eat my grapes slowly, letting them melt in my mouth until they’re soft like normal grapes. They don’t taste like normal grapes, they taste like what a freezer-water popsicle would taste like. I don’t complain about them though, better than cereal I guess.  
While we’re all quiet for the time being, Justin pulls out a map and finally tells us what him and Corinne were talking about last night.  
“I was up early this morning searching up train schedules. It looks like there’s a freight train that runs from Hatari to Laja. If we pack up all our things this afternoon and leave at dusk, we can jump on one of the trains and ride through Batil during the night. Tomorrow morning we should be on the outskirts of Laja.”  
“And then what?” Molly asks.  
“I...haven’t thought that far ahead.”


	3. Justin

The rest of our day drags on, Molly and Leo sit on the living room floor playing checkers while Corinne and April decide on what to pack. I sit at the kitchen table, staring blankly at my laptop as I try to figure out the best way to get to the train station without being seen. I’ve considered every option, alleyways, sewage systems, even rooftops. There’s no guarantee of safety anywhere, so it’s mostly up to where would be the least likely place to run into a psycho.  
April and Corinne come down the hall, carrying all our backpacks. They set them down on the table, and I shift through the contents.  
“We should bring maybe one or two changes of clothes, a water bottle for each of us, food that won’t spoil on us, maybe one or two keepsakes. Money, too.”  
I nod my head, and walk over to where Molly and Leo are sitting, they’ve been staring at their pieces for a while now.  
“Hey, how’s your game going?”  
They look up, their trance broken.  
“Huh? Oh,” Molly says, “I’m beating him.”  
“Only by one piece!” Leo pipes up.  
“Can you guys finish up soon? You probably need to start looking at toys to bring with you. Make sure you choose your absolute favorites.”  
 _Because we’re not coming back._ I keep this thought to myself.  
“Okay, we kinda got bored of playing anyway.” Leo says, and he swipes the pieces off the board and into its box.  
We all grab our backpacks and go into our bedrooms, I’ve already decided to bring my handgun that I keep hidden under my bed frame, and a locket with pictures of my biological and current family. Corinne comes out of the bathroom with her favorite makeup and jewelry.  
“Interesting choice of keepsakes, very functional.” I say to her, she looks up and scoffs at my sarcasm.  
“What’s wrong with a little bit of vanity? Just because I’m immigrating doesn’t mean I can’t have nice things.”  
I kiss her forehead, “Of course, I’m just teasing.”  
She smiles, “I know.”  
We walk over to Leo’s room, who’s got his matchbox cars all laid out on the floor. He carefully studies each car, trying to select his favorite. He turns around and is surprised we’re behind him.  
“I can’t choose _one_.” he whines.  
“You can take up to five.” I tell him, and he happily grabs his favorites.  
April and Molly come out of their own rooms. Molly carries two books, and April holds her headphones and mp3 player.  
“Which books are you taking?” Corinne asks Molly.  
“The Penderwicks and the Hobbit, too bad I can’t take all my books.”  
“Nerd.” I say to her, and she smiles at the familiar nickname.  
Corinne walks into the kitchen, “I’d better get started on dinner so we can leave early.”  
“What is it?” April asks.  
“I’m gonna boil some spaghetti, we can use our last can of tomato sauce.”  
“Can I help?”  
“Sure, you can heat up the sauce.”  
I grab a chair for him to stand on, and he hops up in front of the hotpot. They somehow manage to work around each other on the incredibly small space. I decide that I should help out too instead of just standing there, so I have Molly and Leo set the table. I get out the fancy plates that we only use on birthdays and Christmas, it’s not like we’ll get the chance to use them again.  
Soon the pasta is boiled and the sauce is warm. The kids sit down at their respective spots and I carry each plate of spaghetti to them. We all eat in silence, only looking down at our plates and dragging out our bites of pasta. The food is so delicious, probably the biggest portions we’ve had since before Bakarti began preparing for war. It’s kinda nice to be gluttonous for a change.  
After we all finish, my stomach hurts from the extra food. We all get up and make a little assembly line of dishes. Corinne and April wash the dishes, Molly dries them with a rag, and Leo and I carefully put them away. None of us say anything, probably because the whole situation has fully become real, this is the last meal we will have under this roof. The house I’ve worked my ass off to pay for, the one where we’ve raised Leo and Molly and April. Me and Corinne have lived in this house since I graduated, nearly 5 years. And even though this house is old and falling apart, I feel a bit of homesickness as I put the dishes in the cabinet.  
When we finish our chore we all stand there for a moment without saying a word. Corinne rubs at her eyes, and Leo sniffs. My voice echoes around the house when I speak.  
“It’s time to leave.”  
The rest of my family passively nods, and we slowly grab our bags and file over to the door. I unlock the door and peek my head out, making sure there’s no one wandering around. I open the door all the way and hold it for everyone to walk through; I turn off all the lights in the house and close the door behind me.  
 _We’re just going for a stroll._ I tell myself to try and make locking the door easier. We’ll be back before we know it. The lock scrapes into place, and I bend down and bury the key in the small garden.  
“Wait next to the door for a minute.” I tell my family. I walk a few paces down the road to the manhole, and pry it open. I motion for everyone to come over and climb in.  
“This is the safest way for us.” I whisper apologetically, as I see everyone cringe. I climb down first, and Corinne helps me ease Molly down without hurting her bad leg, and passes Molly’s crutch. The other kids hop down easily, and Corinne is the last to hoist herself down. I move the manhole over us, and we’re absorbed by complete darkness for a few seconds until me and Corinne turn our flashlights on.  
“Are you sure this is going to work?” Molly asks, wrinkling her nose at the stench.  
I chuckle, trying to hide my own fears.  
“Of course, I’ve seen tons of spy movies. If I’ve learned anything it’s that you always have to escape through the sewage system.”  
“If you say so, Sherlock.” she says and rolls her eyes.  
It’s cold and damp in the tunnel, but at least it’s not filled with too much water, only a small trickle runs at our feet. I pull out the small map I sketched out of the sewage system, and start walking in the direction of the train station.


	4. April

We walk through the sewers, each step making a small echo through the caverns of the sewer. Every time Molly’s crutch hits the concrete, it sends a deeper and more bombastic sound bouncing around us. I can tell she’s trying to take more ginger steps. We snake through the tunnels like rats in a maze. Occasionally, a truck rumbles over our heads, causing loud rumbles around us that sound like monsters lurking in the dark and waiting to grab one of our ankles. Leo seems to have the same thought in mind, instead of venturing ahead or lingering behind us, he holds tightly onto my shirt.

At a certain point I start to wonder if Justin even knows what he’s doing. In the dim light of the flashlights I can see his face twisted into confusion, or maybe determination, who knows?

After what feels like an hour Justin finally shines his flashlight upwards, and lo and behold there’s another manhole for us to climb through.

“This should be it.” he says as he hands me the flashlight and pushes up on the manhole, a halfmoon gives us a little extra light. He hoists himself up, looks around, and hops back down.

“Everybody out. Sorry to cut our urban corn maze short, I know you’re all very disappointed.”

Corinne gives him a peck on the cheek, “Sarcasm is on point as always, babe.”

Justin smiles, makes a step with his hands, and shoves her up so she can climb out easier. We lift Molly and her crutch up to Corinne, and then push Leo up as well. Once we get everyone up Justin tells us that the train will be here at 10:45, and he has us all turn our lights off to better hide ourselves.

We all follow Justin as we walk down the sidewalk parallel to the train tracks, trying to blend into the shadows. When we’re a few blocks from the actual station he has us stop and crouch down.

“We need to find somewhere to get in, like a tear in the fence or something. It’s too high for us to climb.”

“We also have to make sure it’s not an electric fence.” Molly says, and Justin nods. “I think we can test it by throwing something metal at it. If it lights up like a Christmas tree, it means it’s on.”

Justin looks at each of us, “Do we have anything metal?”

“You can use one of my necklaces.” Corinne says, reaching into her bag and pulling out a long chain. Justin takes it, walks over to the fence, and chucks it. The necklace hits the fence and intertwines with the metal, but causes no reaction. Justin reaches out to the chain, and untangles it without getting fried. He calls softly over his shoulder to us.

“Perfectly safe, but we need to hurry.”

He tugs at the fence, and it’s pathetically pried up, leaving a gap big enough to crawl under. We all shimmy under the fence, and Justin follows behind. He tells us to sit tight and wait for the train to pull up. The cold gravel digs into my legs, and when I look in the distance I can see the bright lights of the train station. It looks warm over there, and the thought of temperature makes me shiver. I pull my legs up and into my hoodie. Hopefully it will be warmer in Laja.

Justin gives us more instructions for when the train arrives.

“It has to stop all the way before we can get on it, and we need to climb on fast. Molly if you need to I’ll carry you up with me and someone else can take your crutch. We’ll get on one of the end cars, and we’ll have to flatten ourselves out until we go past the border.”

We all nod, and sit in silence and shiver as we wait for the train to arrive. I close my eyes for a moment, and I open them when the ground beneath me starts to shake violently. The train’s close by.

A blinding light hits us and a loud rumble grows louder and louder until the train is whizzing by. It’s a couple tracks away, but I’ve never been so close to a train before. I’ve only seen them from a distance or on tv. It moves so fast that it stirs up wind that makes my hair whip wildly around my face and sucks the air out of my lungs. I grab onto the fence so I don’t end up being sucked under the train’s wheels, I can’t believe we’re going to be riding on top of this thing.

The wheels screech from the train suddenly breaking, and it gets slower and slower as it pulls into the far off station. Before it can even reach a complete stop we all jump up and gather our things. Justin pulls Molly up onto his back and rushes towards the train cars. The rest of us try to keep up with him, and I stumble over the other tracks. By now the train has reached a complete stop, and Justin climbs up onto a train car. He reaches down to help us up, and we all climb up a second ladder onto the roof. We all crouch down and try to situate ourselves as best as we can, fortunately there’s a rail on either side of the car for us to hold onto.

The train suddenly jerks forward, almost making me topple over. It only takes a few minutes for the train to reach its old speed again, and I grip onto the railing and my backpack so I don’t fall. I try not to think about the rushing ground beneath me.


	5. Corinne

We get on the train at 11, if everything from here goes smoothly we should be arriving in Laja by 5 in the morning. I hold onto Leo so he doesn’t fall, but he doesn’t seem to notice. He stares in awe at the lights in the far distance that look like stars that have fallen to the earth, but continue to burn.

Molly takes out her water and takes a long gulp, she and Leo don’t seem to be fazed by the train’s bouncing, but it’s April who looks seasick. I tell them all jokes to keep them distracted and awake for the meantime. Up ahead I see the last train station grow closer, and everyone flattens down right before we reach the light. The station is blinding, like we were suddenly thrust into a burning summer day after being in the cold dark winter for years. I lean into Justin, who tenses up every time we pass someone. I nuzzle into his chest and breathe in the sweet smell of his cigarettes. I’m reassured by the thought that we’re all going to be okay.


	6. April

I squint and try to study the train station. Until now I’ve never even been in one, so I’m enamored by the people carrying luggage and rushing to get to the right place. I’m relieved to find that nobody bothers to look at the train's roof, of course they wouldn’t normally, but paranoia always messes with logic.

However, we pass by one man who does seem to notice us. His mouth drops, and he rushes after the train shouting something at us or the conductor, but his words are lost. I don’t say anything, but instead try to erase the man from my memory. Fortunately, the train never slows but drives on until the darkness swallows us again, and all of us can breathe normal.

We finally reach the Hatari border, and we pass it with surprising ease. I breathe in the fresh air of the wilderness as the city fades away to a small point of light. When my eyes finally adjust to the darkness, the moon looks even brighter, and makes the landscape more visible.

After another few minutes I can see the stars. Oh my God, there’s so many stars. I’ve never seen them so vividly before, since I’ve lived in the bright and noisy city for my whole life. The specks of light in the sky look like someone took silver and golden paint and splattered it across a black canvas, creating ornate patterns and designs that shift and change depending on who’s looking at it.

Justin reaches into his bag and pulls out a rope, which he takes and loops around each of us and our belongings, and then ties it to the railing.

“Try not to fall asleep, but if you do this will keep you and your stuff from falling off.”

Leo seems to not care about the warning, but instead curls up between Corinne’s arms and falls asleep immediately. I hold Molly’s hand as her head nods and bobs, fighting against her exhaustion.

I try to push aside my own internal magnet pulling me into sleep, and focus instead on the beautiful scenery. This part of Batil, the part that’s not a complete wasteland, is filled with mountains. We haven’t been able to see them from the city, but they’re breathtaking up close. They loom in the distance like huge sleeping creatures, the only sound they make is a light  _ shh _ that blends with the night breeze.

I look ahead, and one mountain is the biggest I’ve ever seen, and seems to grow steadily closer. My eyes widen as I realize we’re headed straight for it.

“Justin.” I turn around and watch as he realizes what’s ahead. He jumps up and starts untying the ropes.

“What is that?” Leo asks, waking up from Corinne’s sudden movements.

“We’re going to be going through a tunnel, so we have to move fast.”

We untie ourselves from the rail, and my anxiety builds as the mountain grows menacingly closer to us. We crawl with Justin to the far end of the car, and try to climb down as fast as possible without slipping. There’s nowhere for us to stand, so we’re forced to climb onto the shaky coupling between the cars. At the last second, Corinne jumps down and we’re immediately plunged into darkness. Justin puts his arms around us and holds on tightly. The train rushing through the tunnel sends warped sounds of booming around us. My own pounding heartbeats are drowned out by the thundering wheels of the train, a headache begins to brew at the base of my neck. I try not to think about how close the walls are, or how the shaky cables could easily throw us under the whirling wheels.

My eyes adjust slightly to the pitch darkness, and I can see Molly grip her crutch tightly. Justin’s arms shake slightly, but he keeps a firm hold on all of us. The blue light of the moon appears at the end of the tunnel, and we all let out a breath when the fresh air rushes past us again. Justin pushes us back up the ladder and onto the roof of the train car, for once I’m grateful that we can tie ourselves to the roof in contrast to gripping to the side of the cars. The steady rumble of the train doesn’t seem to bother me anymore.

Once we’re all collected on the roof, I look ahead of us again. We’ve left the mountains and are now headed into the desert, I’m glad that we only have to go through when it’s night. I can’t imagine being out here during the day, it must be awful.

“I have an idea of what we’ll do next,” Justin says suddenly, “we’ll stay on the train until we pass the Laja border, and then we’ll jump off when it starts to slow down. It’s 12 am now, so we should be there in about 6 hours.”

The pull of sleep suddenly hits me full force, and I prop my head up on my hand as my eyes are yanked shut.

**⬇⬇⬇**

“April! You need to wake up!”

Corinne shakes me, her voice trembles. I sit up and rub my face, feeling stiff from sleeping on the metal train. I’m surprised to find that the train has stopped.

“What is it? Are we in Laja?”

She claps a hand over my mouth, and I jump, I’ve never seen her move so desperately. She shakes her head with wide eyes, and puts a finger over her mouth, removing her hand from my mouth. I look around at our surroundings, and realize that we’re nowhere close to Laja. There’s nothing but flat, dry dirt around us. Not even the glow of a distant city beckons for us. Even the moon has become obscured by dark clouds. Beams of light suddenly appear at the front of the train.

“Why are we stopped?” I mouth at her.

“They found out we’re here, I don’t know how, but now we’re screwed.”

“Shouldn’t we be getting out of here?”

Corinne looks down at the ground.

“I don’t know, we’re not even close to Laja, but if we stay here we might be incarcerated. I don’t want to be pessimistic but we may have to run.”

I look around the car, and Justin, Leo, and Molly are gone.

“Where are the others?”

Corinne sighs, “Justin’s trying to get them on the ground as quietly as possible. We need to go with them.”

I nod my head and pull my bag onto my shoulders. I creep down the ladder with Corinne and meet everyone on the ground. We try to squeeze ourselves together to keep from being seen, and when Justin speaks a cloud of steam drifts out of his mouth. I can tell he’s in survival mode, his eyes are darting around as he scans for a place to run.

“I know that shit’s hitting the fan right now, but we need to move fast.”

The flashlights get closer, and I can hear men shouting at each other. We don’t have much time.

“Everyone hold hands.” Justin tells us, I lock hands with Corinne.

Leo starts to whine, “But I don’t-”

“Shut up! You need to listen to us for once without fussing about it!” Justin hisses. Leo’s complaints wither in his throat.

Justin peeks his head around the corner, and moves forward.

“Come on!”

We try to run as quietly as possible, and it seems like we’ve gotten away easily enough.

Molly trips on a rock and cries out as her weight goes onto her bad leg. The flashlight beams all jerk to where we are, and the men shout for us to stop. We hear their footsteps quicken as they charge at us.

Justin curses, and throws Molly over his shoulder. She groans from the sudden movement of her tender leg, but holds back any more squeals.

“Run!” Justin shouts, and we have no choice but to do so.

My legs feel rubbery after sitting on the train roof for so long, and every step sends pins and needles through my feet. My hands are sweaty and start to slip from Corinne’s grasp, but she latches onto my hoodie and drags me with her.

Somehow, the shouts of the men behind us fade, and when I look back I can see that they’re no longer running after us.

“They’ve stopped.” I say, and our sprinting train comes to a halt. The others turn back to the train, we watch as the men search through the dark for a bit, and then retreat back into the train. Doing a thorough search through the dark for us isn’t worth their time.

We all sit down and catch our breath, then helplessly watch the train start up again and zoom off, the headlights fading into a speck of light. After a few moments Leo looks up at us with glassy eyes. His voice quivers as he asks an innocent question.

"So what do we do now?"

Justin’s anger flares, and he stands up.

“I don’t know, okay? I thought that maybe they wouldn’t notice us, I didn’t  _ think _ they would notice us. I planned everything so carefully, every small detail worked out to get us as far as Laja, but I guess that wasn’t enough!”

I hear him choke on his last word. As he talks, his voice becomes more distressed and more desperate.

“I couldn’t even get us halfway there! Now we’re in the middle of fucking nowhere with no way to get back to home or Laja or anywhere!”

As he talks, he frantically paces in a circle. He eventually gets tired and sits down, defeated.

“I mean, I tried to get us to a safer place, but look at what happened! We’re stranded in the desert with barely any food or water, and-”

He lets out a sob, and he puts his face in his hands.

“I’ve fucked everything up. Everything’s my fault. I-”

“Shh, it’s okay.” Corinne scoots next to him and puts an arm around him. She whispers in his ear.

“We’re in this together, we can get out of this. We got this far, so we can make it to Laja. We just need to ration our necessities and we’ll be okay. Take some deep breaths, babe. You’re going to be okay. We’re all fine, maybe a little shaken up, but other than that we’re fine.”

Her words seem to relax him, she plants a kiss on the back of his neck and one last time whispers- “It’s okay.”

We all stay like this. Justin with his head down, Corinne resting her nose on his neck, Molly sitting on the ground scratching a design in the dirt, Leo looking at us wide-eyed, and me with my head resting on my hand. We all sit here, poised in the moonlight, hoping that somehow we can get out of this.


	7. April

I must have dozed off again, because when I open my eyes I can tell it’s almost morning. I spot Justin standing off a ways and staring at the horizon, I wonder if he got any sleep. I turn around and see everyone else is still asleep. Corinne is laying on the ground with one hand on Molly’s arm, Justin’s jacket covers her like a blanket. Leo is sprawled out with drool coming out of his mouth, which I can’t help but giggle at.

When I turn back around Justin is smiling at me.

“Good morning.”

His eyes look puffy from crying, but he seems better than last night.

“I thought you’d be up soon, we need to wake the others up and get moving soon. It’s best if we get a head start before the sun comes up. I just wanted to let you guys sleep a little extra.”

We both wake everyone up, and we each have a piece of beef jerky and a handful of trail mix for breakfast. Justin tells us not to eat our grapes until we’re thirsty, because of the water contents. Corinne looks in the direction of the sun’s glow.

“Hey Nerd, what direction does the sun rise?”

Molly scratches a bug bite her arm.

“Uh, east, I think.”

Corinne nods.

“We should go west then, there’s a river in that direction. Our first priority should be to get water. Unless anyone objects?”

No one does, so we gather out things and begin our long walk. We don’t say much at first, but Corinne stays cheerful and tries to make small talk.

“This is kind of cool. We’re like gypsies, or vagabonds.”

“What’s a ragabond?” Leo asks.

“A  _ vagabond _ . It means wanderer in French. You would've known that if you paid attention to my lessons.”

“It's so _boring_.” he grumbles back.

“Maybe that’s what we can call ourselves.” I say, “The Vagabonds.”

“Makes us sound like a bunch of pirates!” Leo hollers excitedly, “The ferocious Vagabonds, the terrors of the great sea!”

We chuckle at his imagination, and Leo runs around fighting imaginary sea monsters. We continue to walk until the sun finally begins to rise. We haven’t found anything to shade ourselves yet, so we just sit down and hold our jackets over our heads to block out the sun. Pretty soon my arms are so tired that I just toss my jacket over my head, what I really need right now is sunglasses. We drink a few sips of our water, and nibble at a few bites of food.

“Don’t eat unless you can’t take the hunger.” Justin tells us, “If you eat something dry it’ll make you more thirsty. Also you should try to sleep, because we’ll be walking the most at night.”

We try, but it’s so hard with sweat pouring down my back and soaking into my shirt. Fortunately, we’re all graced with a bit of wind to ease our suffering.

“Hey April?” Corinne says.

“Yeah.”

“Can you put on some music?”

“What should I play?”

“Anything, I just need a distraction.”

I open a playlist of all our favorite songs and crank up my mp3, we sit there and try to find our individual happy places. Leo takes out his cars and makes race tracks in the dirt. Molly reads her book, and after Leo gets bored of his cars she passes him the _Penderwicks_ and helps him sound out the words. Justin encourages us to sip from our water every hour, and he lets Leo eat a few grapes.

After a painstakingly long afternoon, Justin’s watch finally reads 7 pm. We eat some beef jerky and as the sun touches the horizon we begin walking again.

“Why can’t we use our flashlights?” Leo asks.

“We have to save the batteries, and if any planes fly over we could be spotted. It’s too risky.”

“Can we still play music?” I ask, “They can’t hear us from the air, right?”

Justin laughs, “Go ahead. Blast it.”

I start a playlist of our favorite songs that are practically ancient now. A nice mix of Queen, Nirvana, Imagine Dragons, 21 Pilots, a little bit of Hozier, the best music to sing along to and help keep us alert. We all sing and laugh at each other’s imitations of various singer’s accents, but our fun is quickly interrupted by the sound of the mp3’s battery dying. Shit, I knew I should have charged it up while the sun was still out. Now I’ll have to wait until the morning.

“Damn it!” Leo says, “Now we don’t have anything fun to do!”

“Watch your language, kid.” Justin warns.

“But you curse all the time!” Leo insists.

“That’s because I’m much older.”

Leo says a few words under his breath, and Justin chuckles.

“You wanna hear a story?”

“That depends.” Leo says suspiciously.

“Don’t worry, it’s a cool story.”

“It better be.”

“Oh it is, I’ll tell you about how me and Corinne met you.”

“Okay, that sounds good. But let me ride on your back.”

“Sure, hop up.”

We stop for a few seconds so Leo can jump onto Justin’s back.

“You already know how we met April and Molly, right?”

“Yeah, they were put into an orphanage and then they escaped and found you guys.”

“Yep, and we met you after Corinne graduated. The four of us were walking somewhere when I noticed you following us. I chased you off, but then a few days later you started following us again. I got tired of having to chase you off every other day, so the next time we saw you I just stopped you and asked you why you were following us.”

“I asked about Molly’s crutch, right?” Leo asks.

“Yep, and I told you that she was born with her leg twisted and that her parents couldn’t afford to have it fixed so it stayed that way. I told you to go away after that, but of course you still followed us back to our house.”

“All I wanted was a bath!” Leo says defensively.

“If a random dog came over to you, would you give it a bath?”

“No. But I’m not some random dog.”

“We didn’t know that when we first met you.” Justin says, “I thought you might’ve wanted to steal something. But after Corinne talked to you for a bit she decided you had to stay with us. She said you could sleep over for the night, but at that point she was attached to you. I tried to change her mind. I reminded her that there were already four of us that we were struggling to feed, but she said to me- ‘What about April and Molly? We took them in when they needed us most, and look at how wonderful it’s been to have them? You’ve practically become a father to them! They were strangers to us at one point in time like he is. At least give this kid a chance, too.’ I hated to admit that she was right, but she was. After a while I did realize that you weren’t such a bad kid after all.”

“And I realized that you weren’t an old meanie.” Leo grins maniacally.

“If I’m old, than what does that make Corinne?”

“ _ She _ doesn’t act like an old crab.”

“I’m not an old crab! Who taught _ you _ your manners?”

“What manners?”

“Ugh, you’re hopeless.” Justin fluffs Leo’s hair.

“Cut that out!”

“Only if you stop calling me an old crab.”

“Fine.” Leo grumbles.

We’re all quiet for a long time, but suddenly we hear the rumble of thunder in the distance and see the distant sky flash. We keep walking, and watch as the clouds get closer to us. I feel a few drops of rain, and before we can say anything water begins pouring from the sky.

The cool water feels amazing after us being so sweaty all day, and it seems to boost Corinne’s mood too, because she starts singing Bohemian Rhapsody. We all join in, screaming the lyrics at the top of our lungs as our words get drowned out by the downpour. Leo jumps off of Justin’s back and starts running in circles around us, whooping and hollering as he’s drenched. Molly laughs at him, but starts to shiver in her soaked coat. Corinne puts her own coat over Molly’s shoulders, and walks with her arms folded, trying not to shiver herself.

In a few minutes we’re too tired to keep going, and Justin lets us stop for 30 minutes to catch our breath.

“This is really weird. The rain season for Batil is in late November, and it’s not even close to then.” Justin says, “Put your water bottles out with the caps off, we need to take advantage of the rain while we still have it.”

We follow his orders, and spend the rest of our break trying to relax and prepare ourselves mentally for the miles ahead of us. When Justin finally tells us to stand up and keep moving the rain does seem to slow down a little, but we still have to trudge through the thick mud that has accumulated. After another two hours we’re even more exhausted and shivering with our hopelessly drenched clothing.

“I think we should stop and sleep as much as we can, we won’t make much progress tomorrow if we’re exhausted.” Corinne suggests.

I can tell Justin wants to keep going, but he doesn’t contradict, I’m sure he’s as exhausted as the rest of us. We hope that the rain clouds will still hang around tomorrow, since none of us want to be back walking out in the sun just yet. We try to fix up a tent with a few of our coats, but with nothing much to hang them on we take it down and just wear them. We sleep against each other’s backs so we don’t have to lay completely on the mud and get mud in our face. It’s pretty uncomfortable having to sit in basically a giant mud puddle, but at this point I just want to close my eyes and escape reality for a while.


	8. Molly

According to my wristwatch I wake up at 10. The rain’s gone now and only a cool mist is left behind. At least the mud is more tolerable, most of the pooled water has been sucked into the parched dirt overnight. I’m still caked with it though.

Corinne also seems to be awake, she’s sitting a few faces from where the rest of us are, meditating as the fog peacefully swirls around her. She looks like a goddess, floating through the clouds and bending them to her will.

I nudge April awake with my elbow, and we eat a few cookies from our bags for breakfast. I’m trying not to worry too much about our supplies, but there’s still that thought of starvation gnawing at the back of my mind.

The rest of us get up, and feeling a bit more refreshed in the cool mist we continue to walk. Sadly, April’s mp3 can’t charge with the overcast, so no music for us.

Walking isn’t too bad, my crutch digs into the soft mud and helps me to keep from slipping, and the chilly air is much better than yesterday’s scorching sun. Even with the coats we tried to cover ourselves with, the skin on my shoulders is red and is starting to peel. Unfortunately we didn’t pack sunscreen since it’s a luxury that we can’t afford, so we just have to deal with the sun burns and hope we don’t get skin cancer. Great.

**➡➡➡**

We walk until lunchtime, and after a quick meal we keep going. I’m starting to get blisters under my arm from the repeated motion of leaning on and off my crutch. This would be a great time for my leg to magically move to a natural shape, but that’s too much to ask for and we have more pressing issues at this second.

The sun starts to peek through the clouds as they thin out, and soon the mud on our clothes turns into dirt that we can mostly brush off. Once the sun is completely out we sit down on the damp ground and put our coats over our heads before we get fried. April pulls out her solar charger and charges up her mp3. The heat is a bit more tolerable today, a few clouds in the sky drift in front of the sun, but we still remain under our coats.

Most of us pass out now, since none of us have gotten a proper amount of sleep since the night before the gunmen attacked our bus, which was 3 nights ago if I’m counting right.

We wake up later in the day and eat a late lunch/early dinner. After we start walking, Leo asks the two questions that we’re all wondering.

“When will we get there? Where are we going anyway?”

Before Justin can say anything Leo asks another pressing question that I’ve been thinking about.

“Will we have enough food to eat?”

Justin seems unsure how to answer, and looks down at the ground. Corinne smiles encouragingly at Leo and rubs his head.

“We shouldn’t worry about that for now, what we need to focus on is that we keep moving. April, how about you play some music for us?”

April puts on some chill tunes, but nobody sings along. Everyone’s throats probably hurt after our screamo we did last night. We keep walking unhappily, but then I notice something on the skyline.

It looks like a little city or a town with short buildings that barely seem to be there, but they are. I rub my eyes, there’s no way there could be a town out here.

“Do you guys see that?” I say out loud, and everyone looks to where I’m pointing.

“Are those buildings?” April asks.

“I-I think it is.” Justin says, and takes a few quick steps forward. Before he can break out into a full run Corinne grabs his arm and stops him.

“Wait, this could be a mirage. If you run you’ll waste valuable energy.”

“No, it can’t be that.” Justin says, “It’s too dark out. Mirages need sunlight to work, the town has to be real.”

He quickly pulls me off my feet and onto his back, and breaks out running at full speed. Everyone else tries to keep up after us.

“Watch my leg.” I say, and he slows down slightly but keeps jogging towards the town.

We reach the outskirts when the sun dips below the skyline, and Justin puts me down carefully. We walk up to the sign that says “Welcome To Bakarti” in weathered and peeling paint. The others catch up and stare at the sign incredulously.

“Holy shit.” Corinne says, and you know she’s shocked if she’s cursing, and I don’t blame her. Holy shit is right.

We walk down the deserted street and gawk at the buildings, the only sounds we make are our heavy breathing and the squish of our shoes on the ground.

“I thought Bakarti was torn apart by a tornado a couple years ago.” I say, “It was all over the news when it happened.”

“Guess not.” Justin mutters.

Leo tries to run off and explore, but Corinne grabs him by the hood of his jacket.

“Wait a minute, mister. We need to make sure it’s safe here.”

We reach the center of town, where a dried up fountain sits. Justin tells us to hang out for a minute, and he goes into a weathered gas station while we wait.

I try to recall the history of Bakarti, everyone who drove between Laja and Hatari would stop here to get gas and anything else they needed. This of course was before Hatari started threatening Laja with war, when both countries had a more relaxed border policy. Since then, the roads have been shut down and the entrances to Hatari and Laja have been put under extreme surveillance. From what I can tell, most of the road is buried under layers and layers of sand that were blown onto the unused road.

Bakarti was a small town, the population was just over 100, but it was where the culture of Laja and Hatari were blended into a nice mix. There was no governor because it was in the middle of Batil, but it’s citizens were utopianists who derived their belief system off of ancient Native American religion. Bakarti isn’t the only town in Batil, there were three other official towns. Mingi, on the west coast, Umat, close to the northern Laja border, and Sesal, which was in the top right corner of Batil.

I think the real reason people started creating utopian towns here was because they liked the solitude, floating between two countries with no one forcing them to live any particular way, they just did their own thing and were content. Hatari and Laja never claimed Batil, since it’s nothing but a complete wasteland, there’s no resources, nothing to take. So they left the land be.

The four towns lived on their own in peace, until one disaster after another hit them. Sesal was burned to the ground, Mingi was washed away in a hurricane, most of Umat’s citizens died after some virus relapsed, and this place was supposedly torn apart by a tornado. I wouldn’t have guessed in a hundred years that Bakarti would still be standing.


	9. Corinne

“What’s taking him so long?” Leo whines impatiently. We haven’t been waiting very long, but I  _ am _ starting to wonder what Justin’s up to.

“Be patient.” I say quietly, holding back my own curiosity.

Eventually, Justin exits the gas station.

“We should be able to stay in there. I’m not sure if there’s anyone still living in these houses, but I don’t want to find out tonight. We can set up our stuff behind the counter, and I’ll watch out for anyone just in case.”

“Don’t you need sleep?” I ask him, and he steps forward and kisses my forehead.

“I’ll be fine.” he says with a smile. I gaze into his pretty blue eyes that are laced with sleepiness.

“You need to take care of yourself, too.”

He seems to catch in my stare for a moment, then he tries to brush it off.

“I can rest as much as I need when we find a way to get to Laja. We just need to get our crap together first.”

His kisses me on the nose, and we rest our foreheads together for a moment.

Leo jumps off of the stone fountain and runs between us.

“ _Okay, let’s go then_!” he says loudly, and me and Justin laugh.

We gather our things and all file into the gas station. We lay down our coats and try our best to get comfortable. The shelves are mostly bare, but some investigation reveals that the back room has plenty of food and bottled water.

As soon as Leo sees the food he goes wild, stuffing handfuls of chips and peanut butter cups into his mouth at the same time. Molly is a little more humane, and gently opens a bag of pistachios that she shares with me. Justin grabs two energy drinks and chugs the first one, and neatly crushes the can. He digs around until he finds several packs of cigarettes and shoves them into his bag. April wanders around until she finds a bag of popcorn and a bottle of gatorade.

Most of the food is stale, but I’m surprised to find that most of our food’s expiration dates are from a few months ago. It’s kind of gross but none of us really care no matter how old the food is, we’re just happy to eat.

Once we’ve satisfied our hunger, we start getting comfortable for the night. Justin kisses me goodnight, and gives the kids a hug before going out and watching for other people. I start to cry when I’m finally settled down. We’ve been so tired and had to go through so much, and now we’re safe.  _ We’re finally safe. _


End file.
